Joseph Fiscella: Week 4 at Suffolk County Vector Control

This past week was focused on fish surveillance in the various marsh sites we are responsible for. While not direct vectors for disease transmission, the fish populations serve as an important indicator for the mosquito populations, since the fish consume mosquito larvae. Additionally, the number of fish we sample might influence the amount of chemical pesticide that is sprayed, since the fish can be a means of biological control. At each marsh site, we set eight fish traps. I provided a picture of what the traps we use look like below. The fish swim into the larger opening in the center of the cone. We take our sample from the traps 24 hours after we set the traps.

For all of the fish we collect, we measure them from head to tail and identify the species. Additionally, we note how many fish are alive/dead; unfortunately, the collection of fish in the traps creates a low oxygen environment, so it is common for some fish to be dead at the time of sampling. The vast majority of the fish we sampled were Fundulus heteroclitus, a small killfish known as mummichog, which is pictured below. I wasn't able to take any pictures out in the marsh this week just because of how messy the sampling was; depending on the tides, some of the traps were set in muddy areas. In addition to the fish, we also collected some crabs, shrimp, and eels. Beyond the species present, we also recorded the salinity of the water at each trap. Overall, this week was very interesting and a productive pause from the typical mosquito/tick surveillance.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yuliia Skrypniuk - Week 10 with DNREC Fish and Wildlife Division

Image
     I can’t believe it’s already the final week of my internship! This week was full of fieldwork, learning, and some exciting last activities with both the tick and mosquito teams.      At the start of the week, I joined the tick team to visit three parks in northern Delaware for flag dragging. While tick numbers were low, we still managed to collect some Ixodes scapularis larvae (commonly known as deer ticks), which are important to track because they can carry Lyme disease.      On Tuesday, I joined the mosquito team for a boat trip out to the salt marshes. We checked water levels, monitored for mosquito larvae, and looked for adult mosquitoes to make sure everything was within acceptable levels. After lunch, we visited two more parks to collect ticks and monitor tick activity there as well.      Wednesday was all about mosquito trap collection. I spent the day with one of the seasonal workers, driving to different trap loc...
Read more

Joseph Fiscella: Week 9 at Suffolk County Vector Control

Image
This week marked our final week of tick sampling. The interns and I went to all three of our tick sites on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday for one last round of sampling for the season. As expected, the number of tick larvae was considerably high, but this was not a surprise since we have been collecting a lot of larvae for the past several weeks. To review, the two ticks that we find the most at our grids are the deer tick ( Ixodes scapularis ) and the lonestar tick (Amblyomma americanum ). However, I came across something fascinating on Tuesday after we took the samples back to the lab in order to confirm the tick counts. When I put some of the tick rolls under the microscope, I noticed that some of the larvae were shaped like the deer tick but had a slightly lighter coloration and less prominent mouth pieces (palpi). I called over one of my supervisors, Moses, for assistance. He determined that the tick was of the genus Ixodes , but it was definitely not a deer tick. The microscope I wa...
Read more

Joseph Fiscella: Week 10 at Suffolk County Vector Control

Image
This week was the tenth and final week of my internship at Suffolk County Vector Control, and it truly feels like the summer flew by. On Monday and Tuesday, we wrapped up our vegetation sampling at two additional marsh sites. There was not a huge amount of diversity in the species we found this week compared to last week, but there were some grids this week that contained Phragmites, a tall reed grass commonly found along the edges of the marshes. While the heat and humidity this week did make the vegetation sampling tough work, it was still enjoyable to participate in new methods of population surveillance. Our last outing of the summer was on Thursday. Vector Control was informed of areas in Patchogue, NY that had high mosquito numbers. We had never been to the site before, so it was a bit of investigative work. While we barely found any mosquito larvae in our dips, the sheer number of adult mosquitoes flying around was overwhelming. This, alongside the unevenness of the marsh floor,...
Read more